Published: Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 2:55 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 2:55 p.m.

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - Most people would quake at the prospect of walking on a thin wire 200 feet above a raging waterfall rushing at speeds of nearly 70 mph below — and doing it at night with possibly millions watching.

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But when Sarasota's Nik Wallenda steps out onto a 2-inch cable strung across Niagara Falls on Friday evening, his overriding emotion is likely to be relief — an actual feeling of respite from the confounding ordeals he has undergone on dry land to just get to the wire.

The past few months in particular have been an unending tableau of whack-a-mole surprises and setbacks, including an insurance company with cold feet, a possible falcon-attack scenario, and the network imposition of a loathed safety tether.

Wallenda also has been compelled to mount an Internet campaign to plug a gaping hole in his production budget. And even as late as Monday, questions about the most fundamental element of Wallenda's historic journey — whether to link the cable across the falls by air or by river — remained up in the air.

All those distractions have left the 33-year-old performance artist worn out and weary.

"I've had it with (expletive) lawyers who've got nothing better to do than make people's lives miserable," the usually unflappable Wallenda said this week. "I've spoken with 150 lawyers in the past six months and I hope I never see one again."

But if, as his late great-grandfather Karl once said, "Life is on the wire; everything else is waiting," a 27-year wait ends today.

Shortly after 10 p.m., before a global TV audience, the Sarasota circus superstar will attempt to complete a family dream by venturing where no human being has gone before.

"I'm not competing with Karl," says Wallenda, whose legendary ancestor died during a high-wire fall in Puerto Rico in 1978. "I'm raising his name to another platform, and I'm living my dream at the same time."

A lifelong ambition

That dream began at age 6, the first time he glimpsed the thunderous chasm during a family vacation.

Against fierce odds, he would ultimately use planning and persuasion powers to convince politicians and bureaucracies in two nations to overturn a century-old prohibition against daredevil stunting at one of the world's most famous natural landmarks.

But it took a chance meeting, at an International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions trade show in Orlando in 2010, to set the chain reaction in motion.

That's when Roger Trevino, executive vice president for the Niagara Falls Redevelopment agency, a private pro-growth concern on the depressed New York side of the Niagara River, approached Wallenda at a booth with a simple question. "I said, 'Nik, have you ever thought about walking Niagara Falls?'" Trevino recalled.

Wallenda, owner of six Guinness world high-wire records, said yes, certain that Trevino was joking. But Trevino, trolling the IAAPA show for attractions to goose the economy of his moribund city, liked everything he heard.

"He impressed me with his knowledge of the history of the falls and everybody who crossed it," Trevino said. "He was a serious student of it, not just from a historical perspective but he also understood, legislatively, what had to happen, in both Canada and the United States."

Trevino said he quickly made a phone call from Orlando to a key member of the New York state senate.

Sen. George Maziarz, a powerful leader in the senate who hails from the Niagara Falls area, would be a key ally in the political struggle for hearts and minds. That was especially true because Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster was initially opposed to the idea.

"He said, 'I'm an environmentalist, and I can't politically agree to allow this to happen,'" Wallenda recalls of his first meeting with Dyster. "But he was very nice about it. He was very cordial and said, 'I'm not your enemy.'"

Dyster did not return calls for comment for this story.

Also at that introductory meeting was Jim Diodati, the mayor of Niagara Falls, Ontario. His reaction was just the opposite.

"Well, I was a little suspicious of the ego at first, but I was also curious," Diodati said. "I was so impressed at how, for an aerial walker, he was so grounded and down to earth, which seemed like a paradox. He just fit in. He was like a comfortable pair of shoes. His motto was, 'You've got to be up, or getting up.'"

Economic boost a linchpin

Diodati suspected the hitch on his side would be an intractable Niagara Parks Commission, which stewards the falls on the Canadian side. He would enlist local Parliament Representative Kim Craitor to garner legislative support.

Likewise, Maziarz was intrigued by Wallenda's preparation. "He walked into my office with a DVD that showed me prior wirewalks and the safety aspects he intended to take," Maziarz said.

The big seller was Wallenda's predictions of a mass-media infomercial for the falls that could lure 125,000 spectators to the area and pump more than $14 million immediately into the regional economy. Wallenda already was booked into a Discovery Channel reality show series, which chronicles his wirewalking exploits elsewhere.

"Nik thought of everything," says Maziarz, who proceeded to do an end-run around local political opposition and work the money angle on his colleagues in the New York legislature.

Maziarz says his mission to get a legal exemption for New York's anti-stunting law felt like a lark at first. But with Wallenda's assurances of liability waivers, it sailed through the Senate 62-0. In the Assembly, the vote to let Wallenda walk was 141-1. Then, it was up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, to sign the bill.

"That was the toughest part, because the governor was not enthralled initially," says Maziarz, a Republican. "He was the former attorney general who was always wrapped up in litigation and liability issues."

Cuomo signed the bill of approval last September.

The Canadian strategy was to wait and push the issue after the country's October elections. Although the Niagara Parks Commission rejected Wallenda's bid in December, it gave him the green light in February with a unanimous vote of five commission members. Four were absent.

Trevino says Wallenda also ingratiated himself like a politician on both sides of the border by building grass-roots support.

"He was speaking to schoolkids and hospitals and day-care centers and senior citizens homes and fund-raisers," Trevino says. "He did this from day one, very quietly, and his message was always the same: Never give up."

Wallenda's uncle, Mike Troffer of Waldorf, Md., would draw up the designs to make it possible. A retired mechanical engineer whose past work included defense contracting, Troffer joined his nephew four years ago as Wallenda's ambitions grew more complex.

"This isn't circus, really, at all. It's building a bridge on a budget," says Troffer, whose schematics prepped Wallenda's bicycle ride between the Atlantis Resort's twin towers in The Bahamas in 2010. "I'm fairly certain no one else would want to put up the kind of capital for events like this."

Wallenda estimates he met with 40 agency heads on both sides of the border, and made sure to hire area American and Canadian contractors. The permitting checklist has been extensive.

Consider the ground-penetrating radar survey. Old tunnels beneath Table Rock — where Wallenda will finish his 1,450-foot wirewalk on the Canadian side — needed to be examined for stability before a massive rigging crane could be rolled into place.

Unseen issues arise

But the unforeseen pressures have been unrelenting.

The Canadian Peregrine Falcon Association, for example, feared Wallenda's walk might provoke an attack by a pair of nesting raptors nearby and raised red flags with the Ministry of Natural Resources. More permits were needed.

Even supposedly sealed deals have gone south. In late May, following the deaths of three people who either jumped or fell from the falls as Wallenda practiced wirewalking in a parking lot nearby, O'Connell Rigging in Canada informed Wallenda that its insurance company had decided to back out of the event.

"Well, it was a little surprising to me," said Tom Parks, O'Connell's chief operating officer. "But they just got scared."

Parks said another policy has been secured, but financing has been a constant source of anxiety. ABC TV, which has exclusive broadcasting rights to the event, is reportedly spending more than $1.2 million on logistics — excluding its own production costs. But the network will not cover the entire tab.

At last count, Wallenda said his team was $400,000 shy of breaking even. So he took to an Internet site, Indiegogo, to appeal for $50,000 in contributions.

"We went with the $50,000 figure because we felt it was more reasonable," says Wallenda, whose donations totaled just over $10,000 as of Monday. "But this has been a struggle all the way. At times, it seems almost unbearable."

Pull the plug?

Less than a month ago, the task seemed so formidable that Wallenda asked his agent "if maybe we should pull the plug on this thing."

Wallenda's agent, Winston Simone, managed to talk his client off the ledge by reminding him, "We're at the finish line now," and "there's a reason (you're) the first person to do this."

But the tensions have frazzled Simone as well.

"It's unspeakably expensive," Simone said from his office in New York. "Every step of the way, we've had more piling on — a $40,000 bill for this, $30,000 for that. We were hoping for more corporate sponsors, but it's a little late now."

But money accounted for only part of the friction. Simone cites network squeamishness over safety as a critical snag. Wallenda was supposed to have announced the June 15 walk date on ABC's "Good Morning America" on May 2. But the appearance was canceled without explanation, and reset for May 11.

"What happened was, one of the heads of ABC said, 'I've got to be guaranteed this guy's not gonna die,'" Simone said.

Wallenda has loudly opposed a network-mandated safety harness, which the seventh-generation aerialist refuses to wear in practice or performance. "That cost us some valuable time," Simone said.

Mayor Diodati — who talks to Wallenda daily — says major sponsors are finally beginning to step forward as the excitement builds. But with ABC doing its best to remove the "death-defying" component from tonight's performance, Diodati shares his American visitor's frustration at having to wear a safety tether.

"I'm inclined to agree with Nik," says Diodati. "I think a tether may actually jeopardize his safety. This is not how he operates. Where does it end? Do we make NASCAR drivers use airbags? Maybe they should give Nik a hang glider or a parachute. He's had every challenge but the locusts."

Wallenda will have the final word, one way or another, when he steps out onto the wire Friday night.

"As an entertainer, I know what I'm supposed to say — this is the most dangerous thing I've ever done," said Wallenda, making it sound like he's going on a picnic. "But the truth is, I've done higher. And I've done longer."

<p><em>NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.</em> - Most people would quake at the prospect of walking on a thin wire 200 feet above a raging waterfall rushing at speeds of nearly 70 mph below — and doing it at night with possibly millions watching.</p><p>But when Sarasota's Nik Wallenda steps out onto a 2-inch cable strung across Niagara Falls on Friday evening, his overriding emotion is likely to be relief — an actual feeling of respite from the confounding ordeals he has undergone on dry land to just get to the wire.</p><p>The past few months in particular have been an unending tableau of whack-a-mole surprises and setbacks, including an insurance company with cold feet, a possible falcon-attack scenario, and the network imposition of a loathed safety tether.</p><p>Wallenda also has been compelled to mount an Internet campaign to plug a gaping hole in his production budget. And even as late as Monday, questions about the most fundamental element of Wallenda's historic journey — whether to link the cable across the falls by air or by river — remained up in the air.</p><p>All those distractions have left the 33-year-old performance artist worn out and weary.</p><p>"I've had it with (expletive) lawyers who've got nothing better to do than make people's lives miserable," the usually unflappable Wallenda said this week. "I've spoken with 150 lawyers in the past six months and I hope I never see one again."</p><p>But if, as his late great-grandfather Karl once said, "Life is on the wire; everything else is waiting," a 27-year wait ends today.</p><p>Shortly after 10 p.m., before a global TV audience, the Sarasota circus superstar will attempt to complete a family dream by venturing where no human being has gone before.</p><p>"I'm not competing with Karl," says Wallenda, whose legendary ancestor died during a high-wire fall in Puerto Rico in 1978. "I'm raising his name to another platform, and I'm living my dream at the same time."</p><p><b>A lifelong ambition</b></p><p>That dream began at age 6, the first time he glimpsed the thunderous chasm during a family vacation.</p><p>Against fierce odds, he would ultimately use planning and persuasion powers to convince politicians and bureaucracies in two nations to overturn a century-old prohibition against daredevil stunting at one of the world's most famous natural landmarks.</p><p>But it took a chance meeting, at an International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions trade show in Orlando in 2010, to set the chain reaction in motion.</p><p>That's when Roger Trevino, executive vice president for the Niagara Falls Redevelopment agency, a private pro-growth concern on the depressed New York side of the Niagara River, approached Wallenda at a booth with a simple question. "I said, 'Nik, have you ever thought about walking Niagara Falls?'" Trevino recalled.</p><p>Wallenda, owner of six Guinness world high-wire records, said yes, certain that Trevino was joking. But Trevino, trolling the IAAPA show for attractions to goose the economy of his moribund city, liked everything he heard.</p><p>"He impressed me with his knowledge of the history of the falls and everybody who crossed it," Trevino said. "He was a serious student of it, not just from a historical perspective but he also understood, legislatively, what had to happen, in both Canada and the United States."</p><p>Trevino said he quickly made a phone call from Orlando to a key member of the New York state senate.</p><p>Sen. George Maziarz, a powerful leader in the senate who hails from the Niagara Falls area, would be a key ally in the political struggle for hearts and minds. That was especially true because Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster was initially opposed to the idea.</p><p>"He said, 'I'm an environmentalist, and I can't politically agree to allow this to happen,'" Wallenda recalls of his first meeting with Dyster. "But he was very nice about it. He was very cordial and said, 'I'm not your enemy.'"</p><p>Dyster did not return calls for comment for this story.</p><p>Also at that introductory meeting was Jim Diodati, the mayor of Niagara Falls, Ontario. His reaction was just the opposite.</p><p>"Well, I was a little suspicious of the ego at first, but I was also curious," Diodati said. "I was so impressed at how, for an aerial walker, he was so grounded and down to earth, which seemed like a paradox. He just fit in. He was like a comfortable pair of shoes. His motto was, 'You've got to be up, or getting up.'"</p><p><b>Economic boost a linchpin</b></p><p>Diodati suspected the hitch on his side would be an intractable Niagara Parks Commission, which stewards the falls on the Canadian side. He would enlist local Parliament Representative Kim Craitor to garner legislative support.</p><p>Likewise, Maziarz was intrigued by Wallenda's preparation. "He walked into my office with a DVD that showed me prior wirewalks and the safety aspects he intended to take," Maziarz said.</p><p>The big seller was Wallenda's predictions of a mass-media infomercial for the falls that could lure 125,000 spectators to the area and pump more than $14 million immediately into the regional economy. Wallenda already was booked into a Discovery Channel reality show series, which chronicles his wirewalking exploits elsewhere.</p><p>"Nik thought of everything," says Maziarz, who proceeded to do an end-run around local political opposition and work the money angle on his colleagues in the New York legislature.</p><p>Maziarz says his mission to get a legal exemption for New York's anti-stunting law felt like a lark at first. But with Wallenda's assurances of liability waivers, it sailed through the Senate 62-0. In the Assembly, the vote to let Wallenda walk was 141-1. Then, it was up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, to sign the bill.</p><p>"That was the toughest part, because the governor was not enthralled initially," says Maziarz, a Republican. "He was the former attorney general who was always wrapped up in litigation and liability issues."</p><p>Cuomo signed the bill of approval last September.</p><p>The Canadian strategy was to wait and push the issue after the country's October elections. Although the Niagara Parks Commission rejected Wallenda's bid in December, it gave him the green light in February with a unanimous vote of five commission members. Four were absent.</p><p>Trevino says Wallenda also ingratiated himself like a politician on both sides of the border by building grass-roots support.</p><p>"He was speaking to schoolkids and hospitals and day-care centers and senior citizens homes and fund-raisers," Trevino says. "He did this from day one, very quietly, and his message was always the same: Never give up."</p><p>Wallenda's uncle, Mike Troffer of Waldorf, Md., would draw up the designs to make it possible. A retired mechanical engineer whose past work included defense contracting, Troffer joined his nephew four years ago as Wallenda's ambitions grew more complex.</p><p>"This isn't circus, really, at all. It's building a bridge on a budget," says Troffer, whose schematics prepped Wallenda's bicycle ride between the Atlantis Resort's twin towers in The Bahamas in 2010. "I'm fairly certain no one else would want to put up the kind of capital for events like this."</p><p>Wallenda estimates he met with 40 agency heads on both sides of the border, and made sure to hire area American and Canadian contractors. The permitting checklist has been extensive.</p><p>Consider the ground-penetrating radar survey. Old tunnels beneath Table Rock — where Wallenda will finish his 1,450-foot wirewalk on the Canadian side — needed to be examined for stability before a massive rigging crane could be rolled into place.</p><p><b>Unseen issues arise</b></p><p>But the unforeseen pressures have been unrelenting.</p><p>The Canadian Peregrine Falcon Association, for example, feared Wallenda's walk might provoke an attack by a pair of nesting raptors nearby and raised red flags with the Ministry of Natural Resources. More permits were needed.</p><p>Even supposedly sealed deals have gone south. In late May, following the deaths of three people who either jumped or fell from the falls as Wallenda practiced wirewalking in a parking lot nearby, O'Connell Rigging in Canada informed Wallenda that its insurance company had decided to back out of the event.</p><p>"Well, it was a little surprising to me," said Tom Parks, O'Connell's chief operating officer. "But they just got scared."</p><p>Parks said another policy has been secured, but financing has been a constant source of anxiety. ABC TV, which has exclusive broadcasting rights to the event, is reportedly spending more than $1.2 million on logistics — excluding its own production costs. But the network will not cover the entire tab.</p><p>At last count, Wallenda said his team was $400,000 shy of breaking even. So he took to an Internet site, Indiegogo, to appeal for $50,000 in contributions.</p><p>"We went with the $50,000 figure because we felt it was more reasonable," says Wallenda, whose donations totaled just over $10,000 as of Monday. "But this has been a struggle all the way. At times, it seems almost unbearable."</p><p><b>Pull the plug?</b></p><p>Less than a month ago, the task seemed so formidable that Wallenda asked his agent "if maybe we should pull the plug on this thing." </p><p>Wallenda's agent, Winston Simone, managed to talk his client off the ledge by reminding him, "We're at the finish line now," and "there's a reason (you're) the first person to do this."</p><p>But the tensions have frazzled Simone as well.</p><p>"It's unspeakably expensive," Simone said from his office in New York. "Every step of the way, we've had more piling on — a $40,000 bill for this, $30,000 for that. We were hoping for more corporate sponsors, but it's a little late now."</p><p>But money accounted for only part of the friction. Simone cites network squeamishness over safety as a critical snag. Wallenda was supposed to have announced the June 15 walk date on ABC's "Good Morning America" on May 2. But the appearance was canceled without explanation, and reset for May 11.</p><p>"What happened was, one of the heads of ABC said, 'I've got to be guaranteed this guy's not gonna die,'" Simone said.</p><p>Wallenda has loudly opposed a network-mandated safety harness, which the seventh-generation aerialist refuses to wear in practice or performance. "That cost us some valuable time," Simone said.</p><p>Mayor Diodati — who talks to Wallenda daily — says major sponsors are finally beginning to step forward as the excitement builds. But with ABC doing its best to remove the "death-defying" component from tonight's performance, Diodati shares his American visitor's frustration at having to wear a safety tether.</p><p>"I'm inclined to agree with Nik," says Diodati. "I think a tether may actually jeopardize his safety. This is not how he operates. Where does it end? Do we make NASCAR drivers use airbags? Maybe they should give Nik a hang glider or a parachute. He's had every challenge but the locusts."</p><p>Wallenda will have the final word, one way or another, when he steps out onto the wire Friday night.</p><p>"As an entertainer, I know what I'm supposed to say — this is the most dangerous thing I've ever done," said Wallenda, making it sound like he's going on a picnic. "But the truth is, I've done higher. And I've done longer."</p><p></p>